community manager roles Archives

CSCCE partner hire: URSSI is looking for a community manager

The US Research Software Sustainability Institute (URSSI), a fiscally sponsored Code for Science & Society project, is looking for a community manager. This is a great opportunity for anyone interested in working with the research software community in the US and building a community of practice.

The new hire will also be working closely with CSCCE staff as we work to build a training program for NSF’s Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) grantees (find out more about that project).

If you have any questions about this role with URSSI and how it connects with CSCCE, please contact info@www.cscce.org.

View the full job description

August’s community call recap: Reflecting on the role of the community manager in STEM

This year we’ve been releasing community manager case studies: two-page interviews, each describing one of 25 community managers from across the STEM ecosystem. On this month’s community call, we shared some of the observations we’ve made as we’ve compared these case studies.

Next month we plan to publish a report that will describe the details of our analysis and make several recommendations for what’s needed to support the emerging community management profession, setting community managers, their communities, and their covening organizations up for success.

During the call, we also heard from two of the community managers who took part in the project, Connie Clare (Research Data Alliance) and Nathaniel Gore (PeerJ), and invited reflections and feedback from all of the participants on the call. We’re so grateful to everyone who came and shared their frank perspectives, and we plan on continuing the conversation on a future call later this year. Read on for a recap of the discussion, and watch the presentation portion of the call in the embedded video clips.

March’s community call: Exploring scientific community manager roles

The next CSCCE community call will take place on 16 March at 11am EDT / 3pm UTC (add to your calendar: Google | iCal). We’ll be talking about what it looks like to be a community manager in a variety of settings; from scientific societies to research collaborations and everything in between.

We’ll also be talking about our newest resource, a series of community manager case studies that we’ll be releasing every Tuesday this Spring, starting on 9 March. And, we’ll hear from the C3 project team from CEFP 2017 as we kick off a new community working group building on their research.

Read on for more information, or click here to join the Zoom call.

*This month we’re focusing on what it looks like to be a community manager in STEM, and how the role varies depending on context. Image credit: CSCCE*

Community Manager Case Studies: What does it look like to be a community manager in STEM?

In 2016, we conducted a series of 10 interviews with community managers working in STEM. We asked them a series of questions with a view to sharing what their roles looked like and highlighting the work as an important piece of human infrastructure for effective collaboration.

More than five years later, after growing a community of practice involving more than 350 members, we’re revisiting the project. Our goal is to build a collection of case studies so that new and aspiring community managers can get an idea of what their role is or will be, and for hiring managers to understand what to look for in new hires.

We’re also curious about how community roles vary in different organizational settings. How does community management look in a professional society vs. higher education, for example? How do online communities compare to in-person ones, and how is that changing during the COVID-19 pandemic? We hope to explore these topics and more on the CSCCE blog as the project develops.

Community calls coming up in Q1 of 2022

CSCCE community calls are a monthly opportunity for shared learning and connection. Members of the community of practice as well as anyone interested in the topic under discussion each month are all welcome to join, and we encourage you to spread the word among your own networks!

In this blog post, we share our plans for the first three calls of 2022. We also talk about the ways that we chose topics to highlight, the different kinds of formats we have hosted in the past, and how you can propose topics and/or present on future calls.

Laying your happiness foundation when starting a new role

Transitioning to a new role can be a daunting and important stage in your community management career. Here, CEFP2019 Fellow, Ann Meyer, shares 5 tips to help you thrive – and enjoy – your next career move.

I recently transitioned to a new role and was a little surprised by a question during my interview. They asked me “Where do you see yourself in 5 years?” I know I was expected to answer with an idea of a concrete plan or a solid, tangible vision for my future but what popped out of my mouth instead was, “I want to be happy.” But we all know that more often than not, happiness isn’t something that just happens – you have to work for it.

Wanting to be happy at work isn’t an idle or frivolous desire. Research has shown that happy people are successful people (Lyubomirsky et al 2005). With a new role, you have an opportunity to set yourself up to be happy from the very beginning. By laying a solid foundation when you start, you are setting yourself up not only for a smooth transition but also for future success. Here are five ways I’ve tried to do just that for myself every time I change jobs.

Navigating the Nuances of Hiring a Community Team Member

If you’re recruiting for a new member of your community team, how do you identify potential candidates, create a successful interview process and then support the on-boarding of your new team member? CEFP2019 Fellow, Liz Guzy, walks us through the steps.

As community managers we are often tasked with many different roles, including Human Resources. As projects launch and demands mount, we realize we can no longer do it all and must consider hiring additional staff, but this process can be overwhelming and anxiety-inducing:

How do we carve out the time for the hiring process that we can be sure yields the best applicant pool?
What if no one applies or wants to be part of our community?
How do we navigate adding members to our team when our community is still being established/growing?